Wow and Double WOW

We had an awesome time at the Feast. Seaside had some really nice weather which was such a blessing for that time of year. We had sunsets on the beach too! I was so excited. And the evening we decided to do Canon Beach it was clear and a GORGEOUS sunset. You can see all the pics at flickr. I'll also post some on here gradually. Rayne had a lot of fun. AND......drum roll.......Quinn go this first tooth at the Feast! It finally broke through and we were all so excited. He slept really well there too. The bed we had in the house we rented was SO comfortable. I wish we had that bed. So the little man is growing up. Now he has a tooth. Soon there will be two and then he will be crawling and on and on..sigh. We went to the Maritime Museum in Astoria and Rayne got to go down inside a very large retired boat. She watched a movie about rescue boats and loved it and told me all about it very adamantly. We also went to the aquarium in Newport and she loved that too. Got to "pet" a starfish. She wants a pet turtle too. She also got to ride the carousel at the Carousel Mall near where we had Church and she LOVED LOVED that. She loves those things. She also got lots of presents and had fun playing with her new friends. Oh and she sang in the Children's choir and had fun doing that. As you can tell, we were very busy and had a lot of fun. We also went to the Cheese factory and sampled Tillamook cheese and got an ice cream. The Seaside, Oregon boardwalk had swings right on the beach so her and Quinn got to swing on the beach facing the Ocean which was neat. Seaside, Oregon is actually a really fun place to go. I would love to go back someday. There are tons of little shops and a boardwalk and "things" to do to keep busy. Canon beach was my favorite, I've wanted to get sunset pictures there FOREVER. Now I finally have some and I love how they came out. Kipper (our dog) went to my brother in law's and had a lot of fun with his roommates dog and cat. So all around it was a good time for everyone. Now we are home and getting back to the grind as they say. More to report later, too tired now.

One Week and counting...

One more week until we go to the Feast in Seaside, Oregon. I really really hope we have some nice weather and that no one gets sick or hurt. I am PRAYING that this is the case. Rayne had another treatment, for vitamin B. Her next one is this Friday and it's for Grain Mix which could be a big culprit of the eczema. That would be nice to nip that in the buuuud. I want to do the same treatment as soon as we can afford it. Who knows what I have sensitivities to. I think Dave should do it too. Eventually I will get Quinn done too. He is liking his food. He LOVES peas. And he seemed to like apples more today. He didn't care for banana when I tried it the other day. Go figure. I have had a headache all day today that just keeps holding on. I hate that. It's hormonal. I hate that too. Rayne spent all day at her cousins house today and it was weird not having her here. There was a void. I think Quinn missed her too because he was a bit cranky today. But I did get some video of him laughing really hard. It's a must see. Here's the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9c36m5yhwc
BE WARNED..your tummy will probably hurt from laughing when you watch this! I think I'll end on that note. Night!

It's OCTOBER!!

I can't believe how fast the months go by and here it is October. We leave soon on our trip to Seaside, Oregon for the Feast of Tabernacles. I hope the weather is decent while we are there. Rayne can straighten her arm all the way and now just has to work on being able to bend it closed all the way. It's MUCH better. She's still dealing with really dry skin where the Splint was, but hopefully that will go away soon too. Rayne also started NAET treatments. It's a holistic treatment of her allergies. It's at a Bio Energetics place and so far we found out that she is sensitive to Vitamin C, B Complex, Mineral Mix, Grain Mix, Food coloring and additives. She was treated for Vitamin C at her first appt. and now will be treated for B Complex tomorrow. That's all we can do until after the Feast. The woman who is treating her has seen many children be treated for serious allergies like peanuts. They went from being deathly allergic to being able to have them. She witnessed it in her office. So we have a lot of hope for this place and pray that it will take care of Rayne's allergies. Quinlan is officially sitting up. I still put a pillow behind him, even though when he does fall over he manages to fall to one side or the other instead of straight back. He loves sitting and playing for a little while. It's very cute. We went to a pumpkin patch and they had a scale so I put him on it and he weighs 19 lbs according to the scale. Little chunk. We had a very busy week. Sunday was Heritage days at a park, Tuesday was a Holy Day and Wednesday was the Pumpkin patch. Today I had a photo shoot with a 3 week old little girl. She was really cute and a little trooper through all of the outfit changes. And now it's almost Friday and the week is over. WHEW! Oh and we squeezed in homeschooling and my school and the household chores in there somewhere. Now that I read that, I'm exhausted!! Goodnight!

The picture is from the photo shoot tonight...Sophie.

They're OUT!!!

YAY! The pins are out and prayers were answered because they came out smooth as buttah...the doc and nurse were both really shocked that she didn't even flinch and he didn't have to pull very hard. It took him less than a minute to get both out. She's using her arm more, but still can't straighten it all the way. She's trying though all the time. Hopefully it will just take a little more time for everything to stretch back out. She was such a trooper though. On the baby front..Quinn is now sitting up. He still topples forward or backward at times, but for the most part, I can put him down to play and place pillows strategically and walk away, while checking on him all the time of course. I can usually hear when he has toppled...he doesn't like it. Not close to crawling yet, which suits me just fine for now. It's nice that he can play a bit now...less holding required. My arms was hurting a lot from holding him so much (whew). He's still a little chunk, very solid. We all just got over colds and he got a cough again, but he seems to be getting better now. Still no teeth either. I think I will start giving him avocado at the Feast (mid October). See how he likes it and how he does. He looks at food and wants to grab it all the time. He has tried to grab whatever I'm eating from me before, lol. I'm only going to do avocado and carrots at first for a while. No fruit probably until he's a year..don't want him to get that sweet taste and then not want anything else. We'll see though. He's a little chatter box....blabbity blab blab all day long. And I just adore his big hearty laugh. Rayne can still get him laughing pretty good. I'm still doing school, about to finish my first class next week and then on to the next one. I stay pretty busy I guess you could say. Rayne is doing well in homeschooling and has shown a lot of improvement in her letter and number recognition and writing. She's doing well in other areas too. It's fun to watch her learn. Especially when she isn't getting frustrated and then angry and then wanting to throw something or quit just because she doesn't get it right away...not that that happens EVER. yeah right.

And NOW


the all suspenseful........BIO.......

Nice lead in eh? Okay, so I left off at the wacko I was working for by being a Nanny to her 2 beautiful children that are now grown and hopefully not screwed up by their Mother. Wow, they are now grown. That's depressing.................................................................................................................................................anyway! So yeah, I continued working for her and just making sure I wasn't around any more than needed and NEVER brought that psycho stuff up again. While I was working there during the day, I decided I needed more cash flow and got a job at The Nashville Palace. THAT was an awesome place to work. I had so much there. I started out as a hostess which sounds easy, but I can tell you WAS NOT. It was a job of strategic and careful planning so as not to tick the waiters and waitresses off. Everyone wanted to make sure they got the same amount of tables and the others. These people made some bucks, let me tell ya. We often had some wealthy folks eating there. Mostly tourists, but sometimes local biggies. There was one "famous" person that was always in the bar...and I mean ALWAYS...like daily and all day long. That little guy that always wore the crazy cowboy hats and outlandish outfits..remember him? I think Johnny something? I can't remember his name, but he used to be on TV a lot in country music. He was there just about everyday. The best part of the job was on Wednesday nights it was employee night and if you sang (which come on..everyone there was trying to make it big) you got to get up on stage and sing with the band (and they were good). It was SOOOO much fun. It was a huge stage and a very large attentive audience. And it was a contest at the same time I believe. I could be wrong, my memory fails me at times. Anyway, I didn't care about that..I was always hoping for that producer that just loved what I sang and approached me with a deal. Of course, far fetched, but everyone there was hoping for the same thing. One guy I worked with has been in several Country Music Videos. Including a Carrie Underwood one. It was cool seeing him on TV...obviously still sticking it out and trying to make it. He was a pretty good singer. I always thought he was gay, not sure though. He made a lot of money as a waiter there. So from hostess I moved onto Cashier. Again, not the "typical" cashier you think of. I had a little booth and I was responsible for cashing out all the customers through the waiters and then figuring out the tourist groups final bill (no small feat). THEN at the end of the night, I had to make the books balance, do a credit card batch and go in the back and count. Sometimes the books would be off by $20 or so and it would take an hour or MORE to figure out how and why. It was usually because I had to take a break and one of the waitstaff had to do be cashier and it ALWAYS got screwed up. So I finally convinced management that ONLY I could be in there. And if there was anyone else in there, they had to stay with me to close books. Of course nobody wanted to do this, so they agreed, if I had to take a quick potty break...they waited patiently. The end of the night till could be $10,000 easily or more. No joke. The tourist groups final bill could easily be 2-3,000 depending on how large. This included all 50-100 of them to eat, drink and watch the show. It was crazy. But it was SO much fun. Everyone there was fun to work with and the show was always good. There seemed to something exciting going on all the time. One time Alan Jackson did a Satellite show from there and they shut the WHOLE place down. Only employees were allowed in and I was scheduled to work. I got to go in the back and talk with his fiddler and it was SO cool. He sang and then answered questions live from fans. It was really cool. Back then I SOOOOO wanted to be a country music singer..well known of course. I wanted it all. Or so I thought. On almost my last day of Nannying the girls (it was a summer gig only) I got really sick. I didn't know what happened, but after me and the EXboyfriend went singing, we went back to his Aunt's house, where he was staying and stood to get up and doubled over in pain. I thought..man I must have ate something and now I have REALLY bad gas pains or intestinal trouble. So I kept trying to go the bathroom. But nothing helped and it wouldn't go away. So the EX said not to try and drive all the way back to where I was living (it was like 30 minutes away or so) and to sleep on their couch so he could keep an eye on me. He crashed on the floor by the couch. I couldn't sleep and kept tossing and turning, taking gas pills, antacids, trying to go to the bathroom countless times and nothing helped. It kept getting worse and worse. It was HORRIBLE. By early early morning I knew something was very very wrong and it wasn't just something I ate. We all thought appendix. By then his Aunt and Uncle were up and we told them what was going on and how much pain I was in and it was my right side and they were really worried it was my appendix and that I needed to get to the hospital asap. So in the car we went and it was about 20-25 minutes to the closest hospital. Not including traffic. Thankfully it was early enough and there wasn't too much traffic. I kept getting worse and worse on the way there and he kept slowing down when he saw a cop and I was hollering DON'T SLOW DOWN..if they pull us over GREAT...I thought I wasn't going to make it if he didn't get there soon. My chest started hurting too by this point. That's the only part of getting there I remember...telling to stop slowing down! So we finally make it and he ran in and got a wheelchair cuz by then I couldn't walk and wheeled me into ER. We all know how fast they are in ER's. It seemed to take FOREVER. I was finally seen and could barely talk by then I was in so much pain. I hadn't ever felt pain like that up to that point. It was in my chest, it seemed it was everywhere. So they make me get up and go into another room and a doc does a pelvic on me. Oh my...that hurt so much I think I screamed. Of course he couldn't tell what was going on, but he could tell it wasn't good. I really don't remember too many details from that point on. I think they must have xrayed me, although I can't remember them doing so. They came back in and said that I had internal bleeding and it was likely from a cyst on my ovary that ruptured. So I would need surgery soon. I panicked. Flipped out panicked and scared. I asked for a minister to come annoint me before surgery so we got on the phone and made some calls. I had to call my parents who were 2000 miles away and tell them what was going on..I'm sure that was a lovely call to receive. By the time it was time to go to surgery my whole upper body was convulsing...like my chest would contract and my arms would move, involuntarily. It was awful. I think I had as much morphine as they could give me and it wasn't helping. Then all of a sudden a rush of docs and nurses come in and tell me they can't wait any longer for the minister to get there, my blood pressure had just dropped dramatically and they had to go in NOW. More panick and freaking out. But I couldn't cry because it hurt too much to do so. So off I am wheeled and really scared. Right when they got me there and started to wheel me in to pre-op, the minister came rushing in and was able to quickly annoint me. I went in feeling much better about having been annointed and they told me to count back from 100..I think I got to 98 and that's all I remember until they woke me in recovery. It was SOOO hard to come out of that stuff. I was SOOO sleepy. I didn't want to wake up....I remember I kept trying to open my eyes and the nurse kept telling me over and over again to wake up, open my eyes and it was SOO hard. She seemed to be getting mad at me for not staying awake, but I didn't care. When I was put into a regular room the doc came in and told me the deal. Apparently, I had a cyst rupture on my right ovary that caused a tiny little tear in my ovary. It didn't clot and therefore just kept bleeding and bleeding, filling my entire cavity with blood. Thus the extreme pain and convulsing of my upper body. They had to suck blood all the way up to my diaphragm (spelling on that). It took them quite a while to get almost all of it out..enough to stop the pain anyway and my body could take care of the rest. They put one stitch in my ovary and confirmed no endometriosis. I was always worried I had that because of really bad monthly cramps. Anyway...they sucked out over half my blood volume. In other words, I was very close to bleeding out and crashing. Good thing I went in when I did and not later. At that point, it was the scariest thing I had ever gone through in my life. It took me a LONG time to recover from that. Not only from the blood loss and anemia, but the pain of the incision. Where they cut still hurt a year later when I leaned on anything around that area. Yes, I have a scar there...it's not big and no one can really see it. But it bothers me sometimes to this day. Hopefully it will never happen again. They said it was a fluke...an egg that should have released from my ovary didn't, formed a cyst and then later ruptured causing the tear. If it hadn't caused a tear, I would have been fine. Crazy isn't it? So there's the story of my close call and first surgery. The recovery from that was NOT pleasant at all. It was long and difficult. I had to have constant help for the first 2 weeks and therefore stayed in a room at the Ex's aunt and uncles. They took me in and took great care of me. So that's it for today. I'll try to keep up better, but no guarantees. Life happens.

The picture is Rayne at the river...all healed and being silly again.

2 More Weeks

The pins in Rayne's arm get pulled in 2 weeks. I am NOT looking forward to that appointment, but will be glad when her arm is all healed. She's doing really well still and is able to use her hand more. We really started doing more homeschool and she loves it. I had to stop her at 9pm last night and tell her it was time for bed. She wanted to keep going! I can tell you, it's not easy to homeschool her with Quinn though. I like to give her my undivided attention which is when he naps, so when he doesn't nap well, it's kinda difficult. But we are working it out. It's amazing how fast little ones learn and how much they remember. My schooling is going okay. I will be glad when it's something more interesting and actually about Psychology. Okay, I got interrupted a few hundred times during this blog, so I'm quitting now. I guess stay tuned when I can actually finish a thought or sentence or both.

Trying To Hold Her Down

Rayne is feeling much better and I have to really slow her down, which is a good thing. She goes back in for xrays next Tuesday and hopefully everything looks good. She's not having any more pain and is even using her right hand more. We've started doing some school and she seems to like it. She was doing her Math workbook all morning. I wasn't feeling very well today and Quinn was super fussy, so I only got to work with her for a little bit this morning. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. I've started school again too, getting the Master's so our schedule is going to be pretty full. We shouldn't be too bored this winter, that's for sure. I think Quinn is more actively teething now, as he is fussier than usual and constantly chomping on his finger while fussing. Even being held doesn't seem to help. I hope he doesn't have too much difficulty with it. He's getting so big. It goes really fast. He's close to sitting up by himself. That's it for tonight..I'm pretty tired.

Really Trying To Stay Sane

Not sure it's working. Rayne is so incredibly whiney and grumpy. It's very difficult to be patient. She keeps crossing that line though of being rude and mean. I hate that she is in pain and bored and yet trying to keep her from being mean and rude to us. Ugh. NO MORE MONKEY BARS EVER!!! That is all.